238 



Its beak is above a foot in length, and the point is 

 very sharp : the upper part is formed as in other birds, 

 but the lower is unlike every thing in nature. It is 

 made of two long flat ribs, with a tough membrane 

 onnected to one and the other ; this reaches also to 

 the throat, and is very broad and loose, so that it can 

 contain a vast quantity of provision. 



Its eyes are very small ; there is a sadness in its 

 countenance: and its whole air is melancholy. They 

 are torpid and inactive to the last degree, so that 

 nothing can exceed their indolence, but their gluttony: 

 it is only from hunger that they labour, otherwise they 

 would continue in a fixed repose. When they have 

 raised themselves thirty or forty feet above the sea, 

 they turn their head with one eye downwards, and 

 continue to fly in that posture. As soon as they per- 

 ceive a fish near the surface, they dart upon it with 

 the swiftness of an arrow, seize it with unerring cer* 

 tainty, and store it up in their pouch. They then rise 

 again, and continue hovering and fishing with their 

 head on one side as before. 



This work they continue till their bag is full, and 

 then fly to land to devour and digest it. This they 

 are not long performing; for towards night they have 

 another hungry call, and they again reluctantly go to 

 labour. At night fishing is over, and they retire a little 

 way from the shore; and though with the webbed feet 

 and clumsy figure of a goose, they will be contented 

 to perch nowhere but upon trees among the light and 

 airy tenants of the forest. There they repose for the 

 night, and often spend great part of the day, sitting 

 in dismal solemnity as it were half asleep. Their at- 

 titude is with the head resting upon their great bag, 

 and that resting upon their breast: there they re- 

 main without motion till the calls of hunger break their 

 repose. 



The same indolence attends them even in preparing 

 for incubation, and defending their young. The fe- 

 male makes no preparation for her nest, nor seems to 

 chuse any place to lay in, but drops her eggs on the 



